Cronyism At My Alma Matter (WVU)

Few things piss me off more than cronyism and this one makes me even madder because it comes out of my alma matter.

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (KDKA) ― An independent panel investigating the Master’s Degree that West Virginia University awarded to Mylan Inc. Executive Heather Bresch, has unanimously ruled that Bresch did not earn the degree, according to our news partners at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

The five-member panel was formed after the PG reported that Bresch had not completed all of the course work required to receive a master’s of business administration degree.

The controversy was heightened by the fact that Bresch is the daughter of West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin and a childhood friend of WVU’s president.

Some of us have to work for what we get in life … others are just handed it whether they earn it or not.

No Infidels Allowed

A publicly funded religious school? Perish the thought! Well … unless that school is teaching Islam …

Recently, I wrote about Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy (TIZA), a K-8 charter school in Inver Grove Heights. Charter schools are public schools and by law must not endorse or promote religion.

Evidence suggests, however, that TIZA is an Islamic school, funded by Minnesota taxpayers.

TIZA has many characteristics that suggest a religious school. It shares the headquarters building of the Muslim American Society of Minnesota, whose mission is “establishing Islam in Minnesota.” The building also houses a mosque. TIZA’s executive director, Asad Zaman, is a Muslim imam, or religious leader, and its sponsor is an organization called Islamic Relief.

Students pray daily, the cafeteria serves halal food - permissible under Islamic law — and “Islamic Studies” is offered at the end of the school day.

Zaman maintains that TIZA is not a religious school. He declined, however, to allow me to visit the school to see for myself, “due to the hectic schedule for statewide testing.” But after I e-mailed him that the Minnesota Department of Education had told me that testing would not begin for several weeks, Zaman did not respond — even to urgent calls and e-mails seeking comment before my first column on TIZA.

How unusual that after being caught in a lie no response was forthcoming …

But if you ever, ever, ever try to pray in Christ’s name at a graduation ceremony where 90% of the students are Christians the left will throw the book at you!

School Backs Off Candy Punishment

When officials at a school in New Haven, Connecticut punished Michael Sheridan for having candy against school policy there were a lot of legitimate questions be asked. Well, now the school has backed down a lot. I’ll have to translate this for you:

School officials have decided to go light on an eighth-grader caught with contraband candy in New Haven, Connecticut.Michael Sheridan originally was suspended and loss his class vice president post after buying a bag of candy.
Michael Sheridan, an eighth-grade honors student who was suspended for a day, barred from attending an honors dinner and stripped of his title as class vice president after he was caught with a bag of Skittles candy in school will get his student council post back, school officials said.

Superintendent Reginald Mayo said in a statement late Wednesday that he and principal Eleanor Turner met with student Michael’s parents and that Turner decided to clear the boy’s record and restore him to his student council post.

Translation: “We really didn’t expect such an outrage directed at our well meaning and caring school which was only trying to do what we felt was best by outlawing evil candy which we KNOW is the root of all problems in the school. Obviously we’ll have to consider dealing with real problems from now on rather than micromanaging what would students eat.”

Once again I reiterate.  OBVIOUSLY candy isn’t the problem.  This kid is an outstanding student and he eats candy.

If Schools Were Only This Serious About Teaching …

As schools around the country continue to fail, they are looking for scapegoats. They blame everything they can get away with to distract from the fact that they are failing to teach children how to read, write and do arithmetic.

NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) ― Contraband candy has led to big trouble for an eighth-grade honors student.Michael Sheridan was stripped of his title as class vice president, barred from attending an honors student dinner and suspended for a day after buying a bag of Skittles from a classmate.

The New Haven school system banned candy sales in 2003 as part of a district-wide school wellness policy, said school spokeswoman Catherine Sullivan-DeCarlo.

Shelli Sheridan, Michael’s mother, said he is a top student with no previous disciplinary problems.

“It’s too much. It’s too unfair,” she said. “He’s never even had a detention.”

Michael’s suspension has been reduced from three days to one, but he has not been reinstated as class vice president.

He said he didn’t realize his candy purchase was against the rules, but he did notice that the student selling the Skittles on Feb. 26 was being secretive.

That’s it! It is candy that is causing our students not to learn!

No, it couldn’t be the teachers could it? The kid is an honors student. Obviously if he was eating candy it isn’t candy that makes the kids not learn. DUH!

California Court Strikes Against Home Schooling

Don’t want to send your child to the state sponsored school because that school is failing to educate properly? Well, now you may be in trouble in California if you do not have “credentials”.

A California appeals court ruling clamping down on homeschooling by parents without teaching credentials sent shock waves across the state this week, leaving an estimated 166,000 children as possible truants and their parents at risk of prosecution.The homeschooling movement never saw the case coming.

“At first, there was a sense of, ‘No way,’ ” said homeschool parent Loren Mavromati, a resident of Redondo Beach (Los Angeles County) who is active with a homeschool association. “Then there was a little bit of fear. I think it has moved now into indignation.”

The ruling arose from a child welfare dispute between the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services and Philip and Mary Long of Lynwood, who have been homeschooling their eight children. Mary Long is their teacher, but holds no teaching credential.

The parents said they also enrolled their children in Sunland Christian School, a private religious academy in Sylmar (Los Angeles County), which considers the Long children part of its independent study program and visits the home about four times a year.

The Second District Court of Appeal ruled that California law requires parents to send their children to full-time public or private schools or have them taught by credentialed tutors at home.

Papers PLEASE!  Ah yes, the state - the lovely all caring state. They know what is best for you. And they will find a way to make sure you comply with their standards.

You have schools full of “credentialed” teachers failing to educate the children in them and if you are no also so “credentialed” you cannot educate your own children. And of course, later on in the article, guess who is pleased with this ruling? If you said the monopolistic teacher’s union got get yourself a cookie.

“We’re happy,” said Lloyd Porter, who is on the California Teachers Association board of directors. “We always think students should be taught by credentialed teachers, no matter what the setting.”

Translation: “We are pleased that we will continue to be able to monopolize the education of children in the State of California and teach them everything that we think is necessary and to hell with you.”

Maybe you can’t blame them. Home schooled students have been making the teacher’s union, their members and the public schools look bad for years. Of course they are going to enjoy seeing the competition wacked down a notch.

Now teach your children that homosexuality is normal, how to be a good Muslim and by The State they better be able to put that condom on that banana properly of so help us we’ll get you!

ASU ends scholarship program for illegal immigrants

A controversial scholarship that benefited Arizona State University students who are in the country illegally has quietly faded away.

As many as 200 students who graduated from Arizona high schools received the private scholarship money through the university this year.

But now, the money is spent, and ASU is advising students who depended on it to “seek private funding sources.”

The scholarships were a response to Proposition 300, a voter-approved law that requires illegal immigrants to pay the out-of-state tuition rate at the state’s public universities and colleges.

The law also prohibits those students from receiving any type of financial assistance funded with taxpayer money.

In September, ASU President Michael Crow said the university was helping students with private money already in the school’s coffers.

Based on Crow’s estimate that 150 to 200 students would receive the aid, the total amount disbursed was approximately $1.8 million.

Luis Avila is a 25-year-old ASU student involved with several campus groups that work with Latino students, some of them undocumented. He said he is already hearing from students who will lose their scholarship.

“They don’t know what they are going to do,” Avila said. “We are going to lose a lot of brilliant minds.”

Terri Shafer, assistant vice president of the Office of Public Affairs, wrote in an e-mail that ASU will continue to try to help the students.

Hispanic Students Missing From Schools

SPRINGFIELD, Tenn. - The Robertson County school district faces some problems Friday morning after a recent crackdown on illegal immigration. The illegal immigration crackdown led to the vanishing of 11 percent of Hispanic students. The district has been under state watch for failing to educate pockets of students, which includes non-English speakers. Now of the 768 Hispanic students, 60 have formally withdrawn and another 25 to 30 can’t be accounted for. Public schools are required by a U.S Supreme Court decision to educate all students - regardless of their immigration status. If the missing students don’t return soon, they will be too far behind to succeed on upcoming achievement tests.

http://thevoice.name/

School Lays Ground Work To Control Packed Lunches?

Never doubt what bureaucrats in the school have planned. They love control which is why they fight against merit pay for teachers, kowtow to the union and are vehemently opposed to school choice. Now at least one school may be laying the ground work to control what you pack in your child’s lunch too.

GREENWICH, Conn. (CBS) ― More and more children are now facing obesity and Type-2 diabetes, so how do we get our kids to eat healthy, especially when they’re not at home?As CBS 2 HD recently found out, there’s a school in Greenwich that’s trying to change the trend by banning certain food.

When asked if his mother was to allow him to eat any foods he wanted, what he would eat, 8-year-old James Budkins didn’t hesitate.

“Ice cream, bacon and fries,” he said.

When asked what his favorite food is, 10-year-old Willie Budkins pulled no punches.

“Cookies, ice cream,” he said.

Not in this cafeteria.

Glenville School in Greenwich is trying to turn things around, starting this year ice cream and cookies are no longer sold in the cafeteria. Instead they have fruit and yogurt as an option.

The article talks about how administrators were basically tired of seeing “healthy” lunches being tossed for “unhealthy” snacks. This probably has more to do with the fact that the “healthy” food was poorly prepared by unskilled cooks and completely tasteless than anything else. Children rarely pitch anything that tastes good after all.

But instead of looking at ways of making the healthy food more palatable, they just ended the snacks. However it is the last remarks of this article that drew my eye most.

Parents can pack anything they want in their kids’ lunch, but they’ve all received the school’s wellness policy that encourages them to go for healthy snacks.

Translation: You’ve been warned about what is acceptable. We’ve already banned food we don’t feel is appropriate from being served by our staff and we reserve the right to control what you pack in your child’s lunch at a future date. You have been warned. CYS can always be called if you don’t comply.

Yeah, you probably laugh. At least for now until it happens.

Nearly 4,000 students in Arizona couldn’t prove legal status

Anne Ryman
The Arizona Republic

Nearly 4,000 students at Arizona universities and community colleges have been denied in-state tuition this year because they failed to prove they were legal residents. The largest share is at the community colleges. Arizona universities and colleges recently began requiring students to prove their citizenship after state voters passed Proposition 300, a ballot initiative that prevents undocumented students from getting in-state tuition and state-funded financial aid. Undocumented students can still attend colleges and universities, but they must pay out-of-state tuition. At many schools, the out-of-state prices are more than triple the in-state ones.

http://thevoice.name/

Is Your Public School Failing? Order Teachers To Pass More Students!

Last month, Principal Bennett Lieberman sent off a stern memo to teachers.

“If you are not passing more than 65 percent of your students in a class, then you are not designing your expectations to meet their abilities, and you are setting your students up for failure, which, in turn, limits your success as a professional.”

Was he ordering teachers to dumb down their classes?

The memo continued:

“Most of our students come from the lowest third percentile in academic achievement, have difficult home lives, and struggle with life in general. They DO NOT have a similar upbringing nor a similar school experience to our experiences growing up.”

This is just so typical of a liberal mindset that I can’t let it go without comment. Things not the way you want them to be? That’s ok because you can just make a decree and make everything the way you want it right?

Wrong.

So whether or not they can read, right or do arithmetic at their grade level is not important? What is important is that you design your curriculum to their “abilities” and pass them unprepared into the real world?

I’m tired of the whining. I’m tired of the excuse making. If you can’t pass algebra, trig, write a sentence with some sense of competence and find the United States on a map, you should not graduate to the next grade until you can. From What Mr. Lieberman is suggesting however the tactic he prefers is that if 50% of the students in your school can’t find France on a map well then they simply shouldn’t be required to find France on a map as part of their studies!

Of course we could solve 99% of these issues if we would just do away with the “public” schools.

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